Exactly 100 years ago on this day, the Tailteann Games saw more than 5,000 competitors compete in a remarkable range of sporting events. It was the biggest sporting event organised across the world in that year – bigger even than that year’s Paris Olympic Games.
Against the backdrop of a War of Independence, partition and a nasty civil war – and indeed partly because the legitimacy of the new state was so contested – the Games were a triumph for the government of the new Irish Free State.
Where had those games come from?
According to nationalist legend, the Tailteann Games had been first established in 632 BC beside the Hill of Tara. In a decisive demonstration of the negative cultural impact of colonisation, the last record of the games was put at 1168 AD – just before the ‘English invasion’ of 1169.
The message sent by staging a ‘revival’ in 1924 was a clear one: despite centuries of invasion and oppression (political, economic and cultural) the Irish had survived and so had their unique culture. The Irish nation, now reborn, would show to the world that it was free by staging a major sporting festival.
It has been planned to stage the games in 1922, but for the civil war. When that ended in May 1923, the government – despite some members believing it incredibly stupid to even attempt it – decided to stage the Tailteann Games in the summer of 1924.
The Games would consist of a full athletics programme, all the games of the GAA, as well as swimming, golf, tennis, horse racing, boxing, billiards, and the modern spectacles of car and aeroplane races. There was no soccer, rugby or hockey. The contortions of the Gaelic mind meant these sports were not considered Irish enough – an outstanding mental leap, given some of the other sports included.
A series of cultural events were based around literature, poetry, music, dancing and storytelling – indeed so many cultural competitions were held some wags deemed it an achievement not to win a medal of some description.
The President of the Irish Free State, W.T. Cosgrave, was clear in his motivation for staging the Games, despite the perilous financial position of the new state: “The purpose of the promoters of the Tailteann Games is to give a new impulse to this necessary and valuable form of national life, and to remind the Irish people, as Thomas Davis sought to remind them, that there is more, much more, in the life of a nation than politics and economics.”
So despite fear of attacks from anti-Treaty dissidents, the Tailteann Games were set for August 1924.
From mid-July Dublin was buzzing with anticipation. Military bands played open-air concerts; drama and opera filled the nights; the presence of Count John McCormack, the great Irish tenor, added to the excitement. Hotels and railways made elaborate arrangements to cope with the expected influx of 150,000 visitors.
The streets of Dublin city were decorated with banners, posters, decorative lights, fresh trees were planted in small green tubs, and flower-baskets were hung from lampposts. The Tricolour, the blue and gold flags of the Tailte, and the colours of the other competing nations were flown across the city.
The GAA was provided with £10,000 to refurbish Croke Park for the opening and closing ceremonies.
For the 16 days of competition, the and the ran daily reports, while Pathé newsreels of the events played in cinemas all over the world.
An Irish team was entered and competed against teams drawn from states around the world to which Irish people had emigrated. Wales, England, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States took part. Competitors were supposed to be of Irish birth or heritage. Each country had a local organising committee charged with raising money and awareness and recruiting the team.
In a late twist to the tale, the organisers wisely sprinkled some international stars without Irish heritage, who added lustre to the competition.
In all, 23 medal winners from the Paris Olympics competed at the Aonach, including Richmond Eve (the high diver), Harold Osborne (the American all-round athlete) and Andrew Charleton (swimmer).
Among these stars was the American Johnny Weismuller (eventually the famous Tarzan actor) in swimming. That the swimming competition was staged in the pond of the Zoo in the Phoenix Park is probably the most delicious story to emerge from the Games.
It was not ‘traditional’ Irish sports, but mechanized sports – motorcycle, speedboat and aeroplane races – that became the biggest spectator events in the Phoenix Park. More than 40,000 spectators came to motorcycling held on 4.5-mile circuit starting at the Wellington Monument. Big favourites were the northern competitors, J.W. Shaw of Belfast, J. Craig of Ballymena and the great Stanley Woods.
A novel feature was an air race between pilots from the new Irish Free State Army Air Corps which saw 12 machines take part in six events, including an aerobatics display. The longest race was held over 20 miles from the Park with the Clondalkin chimney, the Hell Fire Club and the Wellington Monument as turning points. Planes reached up to 140mph, though the day was clouded by a minor crash when an Avro planec crashlanded into another plane, smashing the propeller and damaging a wing.
Thrillingly, the Air Corps also staged a mock battle. A pile of timber had been rebuilt to resemble a fortress in a corner of the Park to be defended by several fighters and anti-aircraft guns from two bombers attempting to land mock bombs on it made from plaster of Paris. The ammunition for the defenders was made to ensure a loud crackling sound as it exploded.
The crowds were fascinated by the speed and danger offered by sports which suggested American and European glamour and hi-tech invention rather than Irish parochialism. There was criticism, too, however. The newspaper criticised this extravagance “while the streets of Dublin and other cities of this glorious Free State are walked by men dazed by hunger and deprivation”. Dublin’s Municipal workers took advantage of the Games to go on strike for better pay.
An estimated 250,000 people attended events across the 15 days. Large crowds turned up to the athletics, cycling and Gaelic games matches at Croke Park. The men’s golf competition was held at Dollymount and the ladies at Hermitage; tennis at the Fitzwilliam Club, Wilton Place; the clay bird shooting at the Leopardstown racecourse; bowling at Kenilworth Bowling Green. There were three chess tournaments, the most important won by Lord Dunsany; the myth was still being peddled that the Irish had invented chess.
The broad view was that the Games had been such an outstanding success that they should – like the Olympic Games – be held every four years. And they were held again in 1828 and 1932, with diminishing degrees of success.
When the 1932 election saw Fianna Fáil form a government, there was no prospect of the Tailteann Games surviving. They were too closely identified with Cumann na nGaedheal and the bitterness of post-Civil War politics meant only one outcome.
After the 1932 Games, Éamon de Valera established an inter-departmental committee to examine the future possibilities of staging a Tailteann Games. Eight years later, the inevitable result was that the Games were no more, strangled to death by a committee.
Nonetheless, the 1924 staging was a remarkable achievement. It brought the Irish Free State to international media attention and stands as testimony to the role sport can play in building allegiances and promoting national pride and identity in a new state.
